Contents

Summary

Plot

After another game of being creamed in dodgeball by the fifth graders, the gang meet up with Gus who is practicing his guitar. A kid walks in, and suddenly recognizes him as "El Diablo" and stumbles into a snack stand as Gus quickly leaves. The kid then tells the gang that Gus went to his old school, Jesse James Elementary School, and terrorized it with his skills as the "Fastest Dodgeballer in the West".

The gang doubts it, but the kid maintains his story. T.J. and Vince find Gus showing off his guitar skills to Hector. After a brief talk, in which Gus denies his dodgeball skills, T.J. throws a dodgeball at him; he catches it without even looking and is instantly ready to throw it back, confirming the kid's story, but he then lets the ball drop and leads Hector away to play elsewhere.

Without checking with Gus first, T.J. and Vince challenge Lawson and the Fifth Grade to a dodgeball match the next day, and to make it interesting, T.J. proposes it would be for all of each grade's marbles. They try to convince Gus to play dodgeball, but he refuses, and Spinelli forces him to tell them why under threat of putting his guitar out of tune. He then explains that in one game, he accidentally hit a little kid hard in the face, traumatizing the kid so badly that the kid couldn't go to the playground again and just studied during lunch. Felling horribly guilty, Gus vowed to never play dodgeball ever again.

Knowing the fourth grade won't stand a chance without Gus, T.J. tries to call for a settle offering half the fourth grade's marbles, but the fifth graders refuse to call off the game. The fourth and fifth graders play, with the fourth graders slowly dwindling in numbers. Gus is finally convinced to play dodgeball again when Hector is hit by Lawson, who thought he was a fourth grader. Enraged, Gus shows up as El Diablo just after Vince is the last to fall, and takes out the entire fifth grade in seconds, earning a victory for the fourth graders; he saves his hardest throw, and Lawson, for last. As the gang congratulates Gus, he speaks out his desire to retire from dodgeball for good, and then walks out into the sunset followed by a western voice implied to be an older Hector. Hector himself then yells at Gus to come back, shouting "School isn't over yet!", as the words 'The End' show up on the screen.

Trivia

As El Diablo, Gus greatly resembles Clint Eastwood's man with no name, not just for the costume, but also for his mannerisms and lightning fast skill with a dodgeball (in the man with no name's case, it was his pistols).

Gus' former school, Jesse James Elementary School refers to famed outlaw Jesse James. Who had many western movies made about him.